Communication Facilities for Disaster Management
WHO DISCOVERED MATHEMATICS?
The history of the development of mathematics is a long one. No single person is given credit for the "discovery" of mathematics.
As man lived in caves before any written language existed, he understood the nature of the first few numbers, the counting numbers. He could make simple comparisons and could tell that, say, 9 were more than 6. He would be able to see that if he had, say, 8 apples and there were 7 people in his group, each would get one and there would be one left over. This is the beginning of mathematics. It evolved into more abstract forms later and through the work of many dedicated investigators and problem solvers.
Whether we look at the Babylonian or Egyptian mathematical systems (which were, in turn, furthered by Greeks and Romans) or skip over to the early (and independently arising) works in the Americas (the Incas), we see man's intuitive grasp of the nature of numbers. We also see him extend the ideas to broader areas in structure and construction. A link is provided below, and a cursory reading is strongly encouraged.
MATHEMAICS IN ANCIENT INDIA
“Highly intellectual and given to abstract thinking as they were, one would expect the ancient Indians to excel in mathematics. Europe got its early arithmetic and algebra from the Arabs -- hence the ‘Arabic numerals’ -- but the Arabs themselves had previously taken them from India. The astonishing progress that the Indians had made in mathematics is now well known and it is recognized that the foundations of modern arithmetic and algebra were laid long ago in India. The clumsy method of using a counting frame and the use of Roman and such like numerals had long retarded progress when the ten Indian numerals, including the zero sign, liberated the human mind from these restrictions and threw a flood of light on the behavior of numbers. These number symbols were unique and entirely different from all other symbols that had been in use in other countries. They are
The history of the development of mathematics is a long one. No single person is given credit for the "discovery" of mathematics.
As man lived in caves before any written language existed, he understood the nature of the first few numbers, the counting numbers. He could make simple comparisons and could tell that, say, 9 were more than 6. He would be able to see that if he had, say, 8 apples and there were 7 people in his group, each would get one and there would be one left over. This is the beginning of mathematics. It evolved into more abstract forms later and through the work of many dedicated investigators and problem solvers.
Whether we look at the Babylonian or Egyptian mathematical systems (which were, in turn, furthered by Greeks and Romans) or skip over to the early (and independently arising) works in the Americas (the Incas), we see man's intuitive grasp of the nature of numbers. We also see him extend the ideas to broader areas in structure and construction. A link is provided below, and a cursory reading is strongly encouraged.
MATHEMAICS IN ANCIENT INDIA
“Highly intellectual and given to abstract thinking as they were, one would expect the ancient Indians to excel in mathematics. Europe got its early arithmetic and algebra from the Arabs -- hence the ‘Arabic numerals’ -- but the Arabs themselves had previously taken them from India. The astonishing progress that the Indians had made in mathematics is now well known and it is recognized that the foundations of modern arithmetic and algebra were laid long ago in India. The clumsy method of using a counting frame and the use of Roman and such like numerals had long retarded progress when the ten Indian numerals, including the zero sign, liberated the human mind from these restrictions and threw a flood of light on the behavior of numbers. These number symbols were unique and entirely different from all other symbols that had been in use in other countries. They are